BIOGRAPHY (from the Gr. bias, life, and grap1e, writing) is the term applied to that department of literature which treats of the lives of individuals. The mode of treat ment, especially in modern times, is far from uniform. In some cases, B. approaches the sphere of philosophy; in others, that of history; while in the majority it assumes, to a large extent, the character of analytic or descriptive criticism. To none of these modes, theoretically considered, can there be any valid objection; everything depends on the judiciousness of the biographer. The great points which he must keep perpetu ally in view are the personality and characteristics of his subject. If these are buried under a load of digressive dissertations, his book, however valuable or interesting, ceases to be a 13., except in name. Anciently, B. was more of a mere currkuluni vita than it is now; that is to say, the leading incidents of a man's life were narrated in their his torical sequence, without any elaborate attempt to analyze the character from which they emanated. Like ancient history, it was possessed of a simple greatness, u stately dignity of narrative, colored here and there but sparingly with grave eulogy or censure. Modern 13., on the other hand, like modern history, is full of elucidations, criticism, and disquisition; and if wanting iu the severe grace of its classic predecessor, it is much more lively, acute, aud expansive.
Biographical literature appears to have existed from a very early period. The oldest Historical books of the Jews abound with beautiful examples of it, such as the lives of the patriarchs and the story of Ruth. But what, indeed, are the mythologies of all ancient nations, except a chaos of heroic or divine biographies written not ou walls of stone or rolls of parchment, or leaves of papyrus, but on the tablets of the memory? Of purely biographical works, the most valuable that has come down to us front the Greeks is the Lives of Plutarch, a composition of the 2d c. after Christ. Roman literature also possesses an admirable specimen in the Life of Agricola by his son-in-law, Tacitus. Besides these may be mentioned the Life of Alexander the Great (in Latin) by Curtius, and of Apollonius of Tyana (in Greek) by Philostratus, Lives of the Sophists (in Greek) by Philostratus, and a Life of Plato (in Greek) by Oly-inpiodorus of Alexandria.
Coming later down, we encounter St. Jerome's Lives of the Fathers,- while biogra phies, more or less complete, of saints, martyrs, bishops, etc., are scattered profusely through primitive ecclesiastical literature. The monks of the middle ages also worked hard at the manufacture of absurd and superstitious legendary biographies, in which the hunger for the marvelous characteristic of that credulous time was hugely gratified. Modern biographical literature may be said to date from the 17th c., and has since developed itself to an unmanageable extent. Among the most valuable works belonging
to this class, written since the reformation, may be mentioned Vasari's Lives of the Pointers (Florence, 1530); the Acta Sanctoram (q.v.); Tillemont's Memoires pour servir 4 C Histoire Ecclesiastique des six Premieres Sleeks de I' Englise, in 16 vols. 4to (Paris, 1693); Thomas Stanley's History of Philosophy, containing the Lives, Opinions, Actions, and Dis courses of Philosophers of every Sect (1653-62); Bayle's Dictiona i re Hislorique et Critique (Rot terdam. 1697); Johnson's Lives of the Poets (completed in 1781); the I3iographie Univer sal!, (1810-28): Conversations-Lexicon (LOth edition, 1831-55); Charles Knight's English Cyclopaylia, biographical section (1856,57). As for individual biographies in modern times. it would be endless to enumerate them. It having, unliapclly been discovered that these constitute the most attractive form of literature, the world is annually inun dated with an flood of lives of nobodies. At present, the most insignificant literary, clerical, or philauthropical personages are not permitted to pass quietly away. Nevertheless, amid the desert of commonplace, the choicest oases may be found; works so rich in pleasant or profound thought, so copious in agreeable gossip, so valuable in unexpected glimpses and revelations of character, so abundant, in short, in everyllther that can stimulate, elevate, or enlighten, that it is not wonderful they should be read and re-read with avidity. Chief among such in our own country is Boswell's Life of John., (1790). During the present century also appeared the Life of John Sterling, by Thomas Carlyle, a work which is considered a model of its kind; and the Life of Goethe by G. II. Lewes, which has been universally accepted, both in Germany and England, as an adequate 13. of the illustrious monarch of continental literature. In France, where B.. at least in the shape of "memoirs." has attained perfection, we may specify among others the Life of Descartes by Baillet, of Charles XII. by Voltaire, of Voltaire by Condoreet, of Nne/on and Boss-met by cardival de Bausset, of ifoliere and Corneille by 31. Tascherean, aud of Honk by Guizot. In Germany, among others, we have tile Life of Heyne by Ileeren, of Reinhard by Poelitz, and of Dorothea, Duchess of Courlund, by Tiedge; while America has contributed the valuable Life of t.,hristopher Columbus by Washington Irving.
An autobiography is the life of a person written by him or her self. This branch of literature. also, has become superabundant in this egotistic and self-conscious age. Unquestionably the highest work in this department of literature is Goethe's Dichtung unit lirah•heit, a kind of idealized autobiography, in which the outward and inward truth, the fact and poetry of the author's life, are strangely but beautifully interwoven.